SOQL in Salesforce

If you are Salesforce Developer working with Apex , understanding SOQL is important.

What is SOQL?

SOQL is Salesforce Object Query Language, used to fetch data from standard and custom objects.

Basic SOQL Syntax:

SELECT Field1, Field2, ... FROM ObjectName WHERE condition ORDER BY Field ASC|DESC

WHERE Clause:

Filter your data using operators like:

• = , != , < , > , LIKE , NOT
• AND , OR , combinations

Example:

SELECT Id, Name FROM Contact 
WHERE MailingCity = 'Bengaluru' AND CreatedDate >= 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

ORDER BY Clause:

Sort results alphabetically or chronologically. Example:

SELECT Name FROM Account ORDER BY Name ASC, CreatedDate DESC

LIMIT and OFFSET

Limit is used to control the number of records returned. Offset is used to skip a specified number of rows in the query result. Example:

SELECT Id, Name FROM Account ORDER BY Name ASC LIMIT 10 OFFSET 5

LIMIT 10 — return only 10 records. OFFSET 5 — skip the first 5 records. So this query will return the 6th to 15th records in the sorted result set. Note: OFFSET works only with LIMIT and supports skipping up to 2000 rows.

Relationships in Query:

In Salesforce, objects are often related through lookup or master-detail relationships, like: Standard : Account(parent) → has many → Contacts(child) Custom : Invoicec(child) → belong to → Customerc(parent)

There are two types of relationships queries in Salesforce. They are,

1. Parent to Child (One to Many):

Use subqueries to fetch related child records from a parent.

Standard Object Example:

Get Accounts with their related Contacts.

SELECT Id, Name, 
    (SELECT Id, FirstName, LastName FROM Contacts) 
FROM Account 
WHERE Industry = 'Banking'

Contacts is the child relationship name (visible in Object Manager).

Custom Object Example: Assume Customerc is the parent Invoicec is the child with a lookup relationship to Customer__c

SELECT Id, Name, 
    (SELECT Id, Name FROM Invoices__r) 
FROM Customer__c 
WHERE Region__c = 'South'

Invoices__r is the child relationship name defined in the custom relationship.

2. Child to Parent (Many to One):

Use dot notation to access parent fields from the child object.

Standard Object Example:

Get Contacts along with their Account Name.

SELECT Id, FirstName, LastName, Account.Name 
FROM Contact 
WHERE Account.Industry = 'Banking'

Custom Object Example: Assume Invoicec has a lookup to Customerc

Fetch Invoice with its Customer Name.

SELECT Id, Name, Customer__r.Name 
FROM Invoice__c 
WHERE Amount__c > 1000

Use r instead of c to access custom relationship fields.

SOQL is a powerful tool once you learn how to traverse relationships, apply filters, sort results, and work with limits and offsets. Follow me for more Salesforce guides!